CapeFearCadaver:madgonad: 14, in some states in flyover country you could get a permit at 14.

It's 15 in my state, or at least was when I was in HS, but my dad taught me how to drive when I was 12. We kept it on our property in the mountains, but it was valuable. Also, the only accidents I've ever been in were when other people completely blind-sided me, never been at fault and have always gotten out of a near accident that I was able to see and gauge.

Yep, learning to drive properly is key to lifelong good driving habits. I was first taught how to drive when I was 12 too. I spent the summer with my grandparents in a 'mobile home' community south of Barcelona, Spain. My grandfather and a distant cousin of his taught me to drive on the miles of private roads near the beach.... in a Ferrari. I didn't appreciate the experience nearly enough at the time, I just thought it was a neat red car. Awareness and control on the road have kept me safe for 25 years of legal driving.

rolladuck:A crash in a 2012 4-wheel vehicle of ANY make & model is more survivable than nearly any consumer vehicle from the 1980's.

Very true. I had a student when I was in the Navy that, while drunk, plowed his Ram Super Sport (Viper engine) into a tree at 120mph, effectively bisecting the truck longitudinally. The airbags and seatbelt (clever boy even while stupid) limited his injuries to a crushed left collarbone. While that resulted in the later amputation of his arm, he is vertical and breathing with an intact brain to this day, seven years later. This would not have happened in an '84 pickup and likely not in a '94 either.

Note: no passenger could have possibly survived the crash, so it was fortunate that he was alone but also made such a stupendous racket with his "speed test" and crash that somewhat-nearby residents called 9-1-1.

JackieRabbit:With some exceptions, red states are poorer than blue ones and have less money to spend on highway safety and improvement. They also tend to have less educated citizens and risky behaviors are highly correlated to a lake of education.

I did just think of a potential, political causation factor: inspection laws. Safety, emission, and maintenance inspection laws force people to maintain their cars and likely buy new ones more frequently.

If you look at Japan, a country that is an extreme example of the factors already cited (urbanized, educated, affluent, plenty of healthcare sites and public transport) and consider that they have really stringent "keep your car running like new, looking like new, and preferably physically new" inspection laws and fines, it does follow that their (2009) fatality rate was 3.84 to our 12.3 deaths/100k population.

So despite their incredible affinity for booze, their entire country has a lower fatality rate than DC alone.

Let's see... republican's tend to live in more rural areas where they need to drive more, and they also tend to be older... but no, it must be that being a republican magically makes your driving worse.

hdhale:SocraticIrony: hdhale: With the understanding that "crashing the economy" was a bipartisan effort, thanks to the Housing Bubble, meaningless statistics are meaningless, subby.

[captionsearch.com image 449x336]

Deregulation is a bi-partisan effort, amirite?

Just like Democrat efforts to lower the qualifications for home loans so that more people could enjoy the benefits of home ownership get their ass foreclosed on after buying a house they couldn't afford.

Nah, it was a team effort (more like the perfect storm) and that is the ugly truth.

This is the perfect example of why you FReepers are so entertaining to watch. You live in a backward world where the victims of predatory lending are at fault. The ugly truth is that your laissez faire, Randian wet dreams are just that - dreams. I love how you guys always blame the poor (a class that FReepers are 90% likely to be a part of) for the rampant fraud that took place in financial institutions.

liquid_love:I'm not siding with either political party here, but I would have thought that the author would know that correlation does not always equal causation. Maybe they addressed that in TFA, but I only skimmed it because I'm lazy.

The whole "correlation does not always imply causation" thing is getting a little tiresome. It is true, but mostly misleading. Correlation often does imply causation. There are basically two cases where it doesn't.If A is correlated with B. A generally implies B, unless...B actually causes AorC causes both A and BYour sample size is so small compared to your variance that you don't have statistical significance and A and B aren't even really correlated.

So when someone says "A is correlated to B" you should ask yourself a few questions.Do I believe that B causes A? In this case, is it reasonable to think that increased rates of auto fatalities cause people to vote Republican? I guess it's possible but it seems unlikely to me.Do I believe that there is some other factor that causes both A and B. In this case is there something that causes both more accidents and people to vote republican? Also possible but I'd want to hear some plausible suggestions as to what that might be.Is the correlation actually a fluke? I haven't done the analysis but a quick look at the data suggests that traffic fatalities actually are higher in red states.

If you really want more convincing statistics look up "econometrics". Pay particular attention to such techniques as; instrumental variables, event studies and lagged variables. If you're just trying to cast doubt on a position you disagree with either do a little more research and come up with a convincing counter argument or stop, lest you accidentally convince people that you don't know what you're talking about.

hdhale:Just like Democrat efforts to lower the qualifications for home loans so that more people could enjoy the benefits of home ownership get their ass foreclosed on after buying a house they couldn't afford.

[citation needed]

It was Bush's HUD that tried to lower conforming loan standards for FAM/FRE, and that was because they were falling behind the private market. And even then, their new standards still rejected the shatty sub-prime junk that tanked the market.

Having lived in both rural and urban/suburban areas, this is an easy one.

Pretty much the only form of recreation in a rural area is to drive out somewhere and get hammered. At a bar, while cow-tipping, off-roading, whatever. Then the only way to get home is by driving on a highway that is poorly lit and not maintained to the standard of a highway in a more populated area. Then in western Minnesota, where I lived, there is the added danger from icy roads and bad weather, which would definitely be a factor in all the red states that are outside the South. Laws tend to treat drunk driving as a traffic violation.

In urban/suburban areas, roads are better lit and maintained, people drive shorter distances, and there are things to do that don't involve drinking until you can't see straight. In the urban areas there is the option of taking a bus, train, or taxi. Drunk driving is treated like a serious crime.

factoryconnection:If you look at Japan, a country that is an extreme example of the factors already cited (urbanized, educated, affluent, plenty of healthcare sites and public transport) and consider that they have really stringent "keep your car running like new, looking like new, and preferably physically new" inspection laws and fines, it does follow that their (2009) fatality rate was 3.84 to our 12.3 deaths/100k population.

For the sake of making a better apples-to-apples comparison, the US mean probably shouldn't be used. Fortunately, we have several states that look similar to Japan, from the perspective of population density and affluence. Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts all have comparable population densities and GDP. Based on your figure of 3.84 deaths/100k population for Japan, and the figure in TFA, you can now make a fair comparison, as well as the assertion that those are significant factors.

The things you mentioned ARE significant contributing factors to their lower fatality rate, in addition to enforcement of DUI penalties, seatbelt laws, and some other cultural factors that are more difficult to quantify.

impaler:hdhale: Just like Democrat efforts to lower the qualifications for home loans so that more people could enjoy the benefits of home ownership get their ass foreclosed on after buying a house they couldn't afford. [citation needed]

It was Bush's HUD that tried to lower conforming loan standards for FAM/FRE, and that was because they were falling behind the private market. And even then, their new standards still rejected the shatty sub-prime junk that tanked the market.

But don't let reality get in the way of your faith.

Actually, you both have a point. President Clinton actually started this process. Bush continued with the policy and then ignored just about every regulatory statute their was and thereby allowing the sub-prime debacle happen.

fta"The 10 states with the highest fatality rates all were red, while all but one of the 10 lowest-fatality states were blue. What's more, the place with the nation's lowest fatality rate, while not a state, was the very blue District of Columbia."

Oh, well that explains it. The traffic is so bad you almost can't get up to speed to get into a fatal accident there.

xxmedium:Dead for Tax Reasons: More highly urbanized areas are more likely to vote democrat and also less likely to drive by utilizing mass transit/walking

An intesting comparison would be to fatalities per mile driven in these states. The results would probably be a lot closer

Same could be said for speeding for those who do drive. It's hard to get into a fatal crash going from one stop light to the next (but not impossible) in very congested areas whereas Wyoming is specifically known for having no speed limits in certain portions of the state.

I'd guess you're both on the right track.

Been in two wrecks in Boston, neither at high enough speeds to get killed.

natazha:My family was in a major accident in 1962. Our van was pushed off the road by a semi. We all had seatbelts on (my dad was way ahead of the curve). The van rolled twice, flipped once and was totaled.

Injuries: one of my sisters had a bump on her head from the cooler.

Seat belts are far more important than airbags, crumple zones, side beams, roll-cages or any of the other safety features introduced in the last three decades.

Don't get me wrong. Seatbelts are an amazing device when it comes to vehicle collision survival. I work in an office where I have to investigate about two collisions per month, and get the reports of dozens more. Most of them are minor, but we've been involved in our share of fatals and permanent total disabilities.

By far, the biggest correlating factor to dying in your collision is being on a motorcycle. It's at least a factor of 8-to-1 compared to the general population, and one estimate had it at 15-to-1. The next is wearing or not wearing a seatbelt, which we've been able to estimate to be between 5- and 7-to-1. After that, it's "muscle cars", which is determined by a certain power-to-weight ratio, I don't remember the numbers, and then it's vehicles greater than 25 years old (MY 1987 or earlier).

Your story tells one of many days when everyone was doing what they could to protect themselves and fortune was on your side. In a collision that's mostly with terrain, (I'm guessing the semi was going the same direction as you) it's still a pretty brutal one, but it's still just one story. Modern safety features, when used to supplement the seat belts, will greatly increase your survivability in a crash with terrain, and more than triple it in a crash with another vehicle not traveling in your direction.

This video does a good job of showing what engineers have accomplished since the good ol' days.

dr_blasto:pecosdave: Interesting thing I noticed - the 10 least crashy states have excellent public transportation - except for Alaska which is simply lacking in things to run your car into. The 10 most crashy states have next to no public transit.

Is it a red state / blue state thing or a lack of public transit thing? If you were to do a find and replace for red/blue lacking transit/plentiful transit you couldn't tell the difference.

That probably has something to do with it, but note that 177 people died in WY, while 2715 people died in CA. Given its population, even one death in WY is statistically significant. Also, states like WY, NM and and the Dakotas also have much higher numbers of DUI along with likely higher rates of alcoholism, greater percentages of poor people and lots of wide open straight highway miles where people are more likely to fall asleep while driving.

WY also has a lot more people driving through relative to local populations. That means more people on the road who aren't familiar with the roads.

I suspect a lot of other red states are the same. They've got a lot of business activity and therefore a lot of non-locals driving.

cefm:"This is someplace where you would not expect to see a partisan divide," Frank said

That's because it's NOT.

The calculation being used is vehicle fatalities per capita, not factoring in vehicle ownership per capita, miles driven per capita, local/highway miles or % of time on the road or other more useful figures that might shed some light on whether it is the drivers themselves that are the problem or if it's just the environment in which the driving is taking place.

That's like saying rich people aren't as good at flying planes as poor people because more rich people die every year in plane crashes (not too many poor folks fly their own planes).

dr_blasto:pecosdave: Interesting thing I noticed - the 10 least crashy states have excellent public transportation - except for Alaska which is simply lacking in things to run your car into. The 10 most crashy states have next to no public transit.

Is it a red state / blue state thing or a lack of public transit thing? If you were to do a find and replace for red/blue lacking transit/plentiful transit you couldn't tell the difference.

That probably has something to do with it, but note that 177 people died in WY, while 2715 people died in CA. Given its population, even one death in WY is statistically significant. Also, states like WY, NM and and the Dakotas also have much higher numbers of DUI along with likely higher rates of alcoholism, greater percentages of poor people and lots of wide open straight highway miles where people are more likely to fall asleep while driving.

Take into account that hundreds of thousands of people in blue states like NY, MA, and CA do not even own cars where as you have to have a car in staes like WY, NM, and the Dakotas.

rolladuck:JackieRabbit: With some exceptions, red states are poorer than blue ones and have less money to spend on highway safety and improvement. They also tend to have less educated citizens and risky behaviors are highly correlated to a lake of education.

Don't forget that their vastly spread out population makes public transportation even less sensible than everyone operating your own 1980-something beater. Then once you get buses, you have to show that there is a benefit in order to get people's attitudes regarding public transportation to change. When Little Rock tried to do a bus system in the late 80's, it was almost completely unused because most people didn't experience enough inconvenience on the highways to want to ride a bus and lose the convenience of having your own car.

When parking is cheap and plentiful, and the city isn't packed to the walls with cars, people aren't going to be beholden to someone else's schedule if the opportunity to drive yourself is available. Combine that with a poor education system that promotes ignorance over knowledge (creation vs evolution is a symptom of this) then you've got a recipe for lots of traffic fatalities.

Yeah. Damn those street lights that require you to say "I believe in evolution" before letting you pass. They're the real problem!

SocraticIrony:This is the perfect example of why you FReepers are so entertaining to watch. You live in a backward world where the victims of predatory lending are at fault. The ugly truth is that your laissez faire, Randian wet dreams are just that - dreams. I love how you guys always blame the poor (a class that FReepers are 90% likely to be a part of) for the rampant fraud that took place in financial institutions.

So bank fraud somehow made people stop paying their mortgages? Not sure how that would work exactly...

The real issue was that middle class people watched those home flipper shows and started buying 2-3 houses at a time. This created artificial demand for houses, which inflated the price. Once this artificial demand waned, house prices dropped leaving people underwater on their mortgages. This hurt both flippers and poor people who shouldn't have been given mortgages to begin with, but were forced to by the government.

The whole packaging of debt being sold as investments was entirely secondhand.

aprentic:liquid_love: I'm not siding with either political party here, but I would have thought that the author would know that correlation does not always equal causation. Maybe they addressed that in TFA, but I only skimmed it because I'm lazy.

The whole "correlation does not always imply causation" thing is getting a little tiresome. It is true, but mostly misleading. Correlation often does imply causation. There are basically two cases where it doesn't.If A is correlated with B. A generally implies B, unless...B actually causes AorC causes both A and BYour sample size is so small compared to your variance that you don't have statistical significance and A and B aren't even really correlated.

So when someone says "A is correlated to B" you should ask yourself a few questions.Do I believe that B causes A? In this case, is it reasonable to think that increased rates of auto fatalities cause people to vote Republican? I guess it's possible but it seems unlikely to me.Do I believe that there is some other factor that causes both A and B. In this case is there something that causes both more accidents and people to vote republican? Also possible but I'd want to hear some plausible suggestions as to what that might be.Is the correlation actually a fluke? I haven't done the analysis but a quick look at the data suggests that traffic fatalities actually are higher in red states.

If you really want more convincing statistics look up "econometrics". Pay particular attention to such techniques as; instrumental variables, event studies and lagged variables. If you're just trying to cast doubt on a position you disagree with either do a little more research and come up with a convincing counter argument or stop, lest you accidentally convince people that you don't know what you're talking about.